Trying to start selling artwork, advice?

[ABCleverun]

I'm trying to sell prints, shirts, and charms, but I don't know where to begin. I've made a shirt, but they haven't been selling. All the test charms I've made look awful; they're all wrinkled and bubbled, and they always stick to the aluminum foil so I can't flatten them without imprinting the texture of the foil.
I'm trying to look for a convention to rent a booth at to promote my artwork and start a following, but all I can find is Comic Con. I've applied, though the bar's really high.
Any advice?

[HannahRage]

Don't start with buttons and artbooks and things, unless you can get a really good deal - they're often quite expensive to make, and difficult to sell a lot of. Start with the cheapest possible small prints, posters, etc, so that you can judge which ART sells and you won't be bankrupt if it flops. People like collecting small postcards and prints, they can have lots of those on a wall and not worry about it going unused or costing too much. You can always bring old stock to future events (and it makes life easier!) but if something doesn't sell, you're stuck with it forever.

Bring as much variety as possible - you can't have too many different pictures, aside from stall space (a folder people can leaf through is a good display method). Bring paper bags or envelopes or elastic bands to package the prints up for people. Look for 'joint stall' options to split costs; you'll have less display space, but your first attempt probably won't be wildly successful anyway, so you want to minimise the costs while learning and having someone to keep an eye on your stall while you vanish for food or something is very helpful.

If you're selling through online print on demand sites, put up as many different things as you can and make sure it's easy to find - sales are more about promotion online than about your art, because if they can't find it, they can't buy it. You can't predict what will sell; you'll find one or two things will be randomly popular for no predictable reason, so just keep trying new things.